Hungary Forced to Restore Rights to Jewish Doctors, Jews Sent to Russian Front

November 22, 1942

ZURICH (Nov. 20)

The shortage of doctors in Hungary has forced the local authorities in the city of Kolozsvar to permit 100 Jewish doctors to resume practicing, it is revealed in Hungarian newspapers reaching here today.

The papers report that a number of anti-Jewish deputies vigorously protested this at a session of the Hungarian Parliament, but were told by the Minister of Interior that public health required the restoration to Jewish doctors of their right to practice their profession since a large number of “Aryan” doctors are now serving on the Russian front.

The Hungarian Minister of War, Vimos Nagy, speaking at the same session of parliament, admitted that Hungarian Jews are now being conscripted for forced labor and sent to the Russian front. “Since soldiers at the front cannot be used for building fortifications and reads, it is a matter of course that the Jews, who are excluded from the fighting forces, should provide the laborers,” the minister stated.

Reports reaching here from Moscow in recent weeks stated, on the basis of the testimony of captured Hungarian prisoners and Jewish forced laborers, that about 250,000 Hungarian Jews have been sent to the front where they are treated brutally by the military authorities and forced to construct fortifications under the direct fire of Soviet troops.